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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28145223">night terrors</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogmoji/pseuds/frogmoji'>frogmoji</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Soul Eater</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ableist Language, Angst, Blood and Gore, Delusions, Emetophobia, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Medical Trauma, Mental Health Issues, Nightmares, Psychological Trauma, internalized ableism, unreality</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:15:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,174</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28145223</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogmoji/pseuds/frogmoji</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>stein is tired, but resting is dangerous</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Spirit Albarn | Death Scythe &amp; Franken Stein, Spirit Albarn | Death Scythe/Franken Stein</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. stein, alone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>mess of a fic but i had fun writing it and that's what counts. here's hoping i get all the tw, please lmk to comment if i forget one !!<br/>TWs: unreality, blood, graphic depiction of gore, severe bodily trauma, evisceration, vomit, self harm, ableist language, internalized ableism, abuse, emotional manipulation</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>How long has he been staring at the screen?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Stein doesn’t quite remember. That, in and of itself, provides half an answer, less than half, perhaps; he has stared long enough for the time of it to blend and twist and fuzz and cease to be entirely. Long enough for his eyes to ache, burn, itch -- has he <em>blinked?</em> When did he last blink? When did he last <em>move?</em> How long, again, how long he wonders, how long has he stared and how long has he thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hand twitches, fingers curling, still held over the thick plastic keys of his computer keyboard. He stares at the screen, tries to read the words he has typed. He <em>did</em> type them, yes? Yes? Where did he leave off again? The letters, for surely they must be letters, squirm on the screen, dancing left, right, left, becoming nothing but meaningless shapes. He tries to blink, has to think about the motion of it. Muscles contracting, skin wrinkling, the warmth and relief of tears coating his dry, red streaked eyes. He wants to keep them closed like this, perhaps even rest. What does it mean to <em>rest?</em> He entertains the thought for a moment, until he hears the quiet scrabbling of something that does not exist, and he can rest no longer. He opens his eyes again, to cool air and the brightness of his still idling computer monitor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The shapes do not coalesce into words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coffee might help.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He breathes out, sighing out of his nose with annoyance as he pushes himself back from the desk, computer chair rolling a few feet until finally he stands. The creaking <em>stiffness</em> in his knees attests to just how long he’s stayed planted in front of his computer, and he wonders for a moment what time it is. Not that it particularly <em>matters;</em> he’s never been one to adhere to the circadian rhythm. Midnight or dawn, he works until he is satisfied.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he is never satisfied.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kitchen beckons him with promises of caffeine, and he takes a step forward, once again feeling the stiff joint complain at the movement. He has been sedentary for a significant amount of time, true, but still, it needles his thoughts. He wonders if the pain is an effect of his time in battle, for surely his joints have taken a not insignificant amount of damage. Inconvenient. It is not pain that bothers him, but the chance that he may lose precious seconds in another fight to this small tingle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It would not be hard to replace his joints. He has performed surgery on himself with much more difficult procedures, the screw in his head not being the least of them. <em>Yes,</em> it would be just a small matter of hours, procedures of little difficulty. Replacements are not hard to come by, either. Prosthetics, perhaps, but that is just so <em>easy.</em> To take another person’s joints, perhaps <em>several,</em> to successfully transplant them into his body with little to no nerve damage. Yes, <em>this</em> would be a challenge, much more interesting than a simple prosthetic. He can practically picture it, his knee sliced open as he leans over it, red collecting at the edges of the operating table. Connect nerve to nerve, muscle to muscle, blood vessel to blood vessel, bone to bone. He can do it. He <em>can --</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>His shoulder runs into the wall, and he is jolted back to the world in front of him. He blinks, swallows, tries to tuck away the fantasy that had clawed its way to the front of his mind, but he can still feel the warmth of blood on his fingers, can still feel the sting of sterile instruments pulling at strings of sinew around his knee, and he almost <em>chases it.</em> One hand, imperceptibly shaky, raises and grips the end of his screw. His elbow twinges with the smallest of pains, barely pain at all, simply <em>movement.</em> His fingers nearly slip, but he grips harder, and turns the screw back. <em>Click.</em> The fuzzing around the edges of his thoughts clear slightly. <em>Click.</em> His heart thumps in his chest, and he is reminded that he has one. <em>Click.</em> An experiment for later, perhaps. Perhaps. But not now. <em>Too busy.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hand drops with a sigh, and he reaches out to take the doorknob, once again focused on his original goal of the coffeemaker. His wrist twists ( feels the contraction of muscles and the scrape of bone and cartilage ), and he presses forward.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. rose and cinnamon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Stein stumbles forward, his hand grasping air where there had once been a doorknob. He blinks once, twice, flexes his hand, and he chances a look over his shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No door. No doorway. No dark office illuminated by a computer that squirms with unreadable knowledge, no room with shapes hiding in corners. His brows furrow in confusion, a hand starting to rise to turn the screw in his head, still scanning the empty hallway behind him for evidence of the room that had once been there. But this -- this hallway, he knows this hallway, knows the dents in the walls and the picture frames hanging with photos he didn't want taken, why does he know --</span>
</p><p>
  <em>“Look at me, Stein!”</em>
</p><p>
  <span>His breath hitches, his gut twists and churns, and he knows before his hand grasps at unwashed hair that there is no screw for him to turn and clear his mind. No, not yet, he did not have it yet. Not when he heard those words. <em>Not then.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turns his head forward again, and finds his face relaxing, his expression dropping to the neutral nothing he had always clung to, <em>still</em> clings to. The apartment comes into view, and it is the same as he remembers. Cluttered with abandoned homework and ill used textbooks, clothes tossed on the back of chairs, half hearted attempts to clean shoved into drawers that don’t close anymore. He knows every inch of it, even now, years after he left his teenage home behind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The home he shared with-- with --</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Red hair peeks at the edge of his vision, curling around olive skin that crinkles with the unreadable expression on his partner’s face. No, not unreadable -- obvious, <em>so</em> obvious, for he always wore his bursting heart on his sleeve. Stein could never understand it. How he let his sensitive, ever-volatile emotions dictate every move. How it came to him so easily, when all Stein felt was <em>nothing,</em> an empty ache that gnawed his chest and could be filled only with knowledge, only sometimes, only for a little while. Always hungry. Always <em>itching.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows what he will say, for he has lived this moment again and again, yet still he tries to flinch when his partner opens his mouth again ( <em>he does not move, cannot move, never moves in a way that did not happen already</em> )</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you do this to me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Spirit’s hands tremble as they undo the buttons on his shirt, stretching the moment out for second after unbearable second, until finally his uniform is pulled open, revealing skin marred with scars and stitches of surgeries he doesn’t remember. His chest rises and falls rapidly, breath coming in panicked bursts, tears pricking at his eyes as he stares at the boy he once trusted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stein just <em>blinks</em>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I said, did you <em>fucking</em> do this to me?!” His voice scratches, warbles, strains, pulling back at the sob that wants to escape him, so laced with anger and fear and regret and <em>hate, hate, hate.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stein feels a <em>twisting</em> in his chest at his partner's desperate question, a feeling he did not understand then, barely understands now, but pain does not require understanding. It requires only <em>attention.</em> Nerves to pinch and pull and bite, tear the inside of him to shreds even as his face shows nothing. <em>Nothing. </em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You finally noticed,” he hears himself say. His voice is smooth, monotone, in contrast to his partner’s high pitch and shaking cadence. Unmoving like <em>ice,</em> as frozen as his body, as trapped as his thoughts. “Or, maybe I should say <em>Kami</em> noticed them. After all, you aren’t very <em>observant,</em> Senpai.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t fucking call me that!” Spirit’s voice breaks now, even as his expression turns dark. The damp palms gripping at his own shirt drop as he crosses the room with three long strides, and instead come to grab Stein’s shoulders, pushing the boy backwards until his back hits the wall with a <em>thump</em> and a half grunt. Slim fingers dig into his skin ( <em>blood vessels breaking under pressure, red and purple and yellow blooming</em> ), though the ache barely registers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stares at the still bare chest of his partner -- yes, he <em>was</em> still shorter than him when this happened, wasn’t he? -- and wishes to reach out, to trace the curve of his ribs beneath his skin, the raised scars of battles and surgeries, the still rough stitches left on him by Stein’s own hand, reading each blemish like braille beneath his fingertips. He still remembers each procedure. Still remembers the question that would tug his consciousness without reprieve until he searched and looked and <em>found the answer.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Spirit had so many answers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why the hell would you do this? Fucking <em>look at me,</em> Stein!” Loud. So loud. Senpai was so <em>loud.</em> He drags his eyes upwards, dull green meeting a blue still shining with tears and with anger. “Tell me why you cut me up like one of your <em>creepy fucking experiments!”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stein's head tilts to the side, questioningly, eyes unblinking.</span>
</p><p>“Because you are.”</p><p>
  <span>Spirit <em>chokes,</em> as if the words have taken his ability to breathe. The hands gripping Stein’s shoulders begin to tremble once again. He stares, <em>still,</em> stares at the horrified face of the older boy, as tears finally slip past to slide down ashen cheeks. He remembers wondering, idly, if he’d pass out. Another <em>twisting</em> in his chest as he remembers wondering how hard it would be to alter his memory as he slept. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Had he felt anything as he looked at his breaking partner? Anything at <em>all?</em> This question plagues him more than any other, as even now, he does not know, does not remember. Only remembers how Spirit quivered. How he wanted to <em>look inside him again.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span><em>“Stop…”</em> Spirit ekes out, finally, the hands on his shoulders gripping harder once again. “Stop looking at me with that <em>blank fucking face.”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stein blinks, finally, his head now inclining the opposite way with a silent quandary. He only watches the muscles of Spirit’s jaw <em>tighten</em> with the grinding of teeth, eyes flicking down to watch his throat bob with a swallow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Death, do you even <em>have</em> any emotions?” Eyes flick back up as Spirit barks a laugh. “No, no, of fucking <em>course</em> you don’t! You don’t feel a <em>single goddamn thing,</em> do you?! I can’t believe I actually thought we were <em>friends!”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span><em>We are,</em> he wishes to say, <em>we are,</em> but his lips stay pursed, closed, silent even as Spirit pulls him forward enough to be <em>slammed back</em> into the wall, even as his skull dents the plaster behind him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I fucking <em>trusted</em> you, Stein! I defended you when everyone else was calling you a <em>psycho,</em> because I thought you had good in you! And you were using me as your <em>personal fucking test subject!”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pull forward. Slam back. Spirit had never been the strongest, no need for arm strength when he was the weapon. But he was not <em>weak,</em> and Stein can feel the back of his head and his shoulders aching from the repeated blows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Senpai--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I said <em>don’t call me that!</em> I’m not your fucking Senpai anymore!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pull forward. Slam back. Warmth bursts across the back of his skull, begins to drip down his neck and stain his hair red.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not your weapon partner, either! I'm going to get Lord Death to make Kami my meister, and then I'll never have to fucking see you again!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pull forward.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hand raises, <em>finally,</em> moving, and closes around Spirit’s thin wrist in a grip that belies the small boy’s true strength. The older of the two jolts, and his anger melts away in seconds, leaving only <em>fear.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stein <em>knows</em> what happens next. Has remembered, has watched it happen <em>so many times.</em> He will twist Spirit’s arm and push him back, sending him tumbling into the coffee table. It will splinter and break under his weight. A particularly sharp piece of wood will scrape a ragged cut across his back, leaving <em>one last scar.</em> He knows this by the blood left behind, and by the single second Spirit’s open shirt flutters and reveals the new injury. He will cry, for he has <em>always</em> been fond of crying, and he will call him one last awful name before turning and running out of Stein’s life.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And he will be alone.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Alone for years upon years, as his <strike>greatest experiment</strike> friend lives a life without him, turned Deathscythe by a hand that his not his own, and hasn’t he always wanted that? Hasn’t he <em>wanted</em> to be left alone to his experiments, left alone to seek knowledge how he sees fit, without <em>pesky morality</em> or the laws of man. Without being <em>nagged</em> for threatening fellow students. Without someone poking their head into his room with a plate of dinner and scolding him for not eating. Without someone constantly interrupting his work to ask if he’s doing okay.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Hasn’t he strived for solitude?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>His hand wraps tighter around Spirit’s wrist. <em>He does not want to watch this again.</em> He does not want to <em>live</em> this again. He knows how it goes, lives with the consequences of this moment and every moment before it, every time he pressed scalpel to olive skin, every time he let his questions guide his hand, it weighs on him as heavily as the metal embedded in his brain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He does not want this again.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He does not want to be alone again.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“P--<em>please,”</em> he whispers, past lips he has clawed open with bloody fingernails, forcing out the words he has not let himself speak before, even here in his nightmares. “Don’t <em>go,</em> Senpai.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Spirit’s head falls forward suddenly, his long red hair hanging down to hide his face and tickle at Stein’s cheeks. The boy swallows, still gripping tight to his wrist. It is quiet, <em>so</em> quiet, the silence seeming to swallow both of them entirely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not what you’re supposed to say…” Spirit mumbles, so low Stein only catches it because of their proximity to each other. Spirit presses ever closer, his forehead meeting Stein’s, hands releasing their hold on his shoulders and sliding down his upper arms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know how this goes, Franken.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I-I <em>want</em> it to go differently,” Stein says quickly, finding his voice once again now that the reins have been taken from this memory and wrapped in his hands. “I want you to <em>stay.”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I don’t. You know that, right?” Spirit sighs, his warm breath fluttering Stein’s bangs. <em>He smells like cinnamon.</em> “This already happened.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is a <em>dream,</em> isn’t it?” Stein lets go of Spirit’s wrist, now instead reaching out to grasp at his still open shirt. “Dreams can happen however I want.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Spirit huffs a laugh against his hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When have your dreams ever been about what<em> you</em> want?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is an edge to his voice, one that seeps down into his skin and spreads across his body like frost. Stein does not look up, just continues to start at the bobbing throat of his partner as he laughs and laughs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But, hey, since we’re already going off script, maybe we will <em>shake things up.”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Spirit hums, softly, voice warm and velvet, and Stein feels his hands moving, one sliding down his arm and grasping his cold hand, the other sliding around his waist. Spirit steps back, pulling Stein along with him, as he begins to turn and step and spin in time with his humming.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you remember when I had to teach you how to dance?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Spirit has stopped humming, and yet, the music continues, now violins and cellos and pianos, all <em>tinny</em> as they ring from the cheap radio he’d bought at the mall. He keeps pulling Stein along, dragging him across the stage their living room has become, the meister stumbling with each turn and half falling into his partner’s chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Guess those lessons didn’t stick,” Spirit laughs, Stein falling <em>closer</em> with another twirl, practically pulled off his feet by his dance partner. Shame warms his face, as there are few things that he is <em>not</em> naturally gifted at, but apparently ballroom dance is one of them. He wonders, <em>remembers</em> wondering the first time he tripped over Spirit’s feet, where the weapon had learned to dance in the <em>first place.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>The memory of that clumsy apartment dance floats past his consciousness, filling his body with that same feeling he felt then. Embarrassment as his lack of rhythm, at the <em>closeness</em> of his partner. Frustration and annoyance. A <em>something</em> in his chest that he did not, <em>could not</em> understand, that he explained away as raised heart rate due to physical activity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How many times had he rationalized away the fluttering of his stomach? The rapid pace of his heart? A feeling he could never comprehend, always tugging at the back of his mind, bothering and bothering, for this had no answer, not when he didn’t even know the question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He still has not looked up, his eyes trained to the movement of each step, trying in vain to match Spirit’s seemingly <em>perfect</em> rhythm. His hair brushes up against his chest -- <em>still bare,</em> even here, buried in a different half-memory. Reminding him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is this what you want, Stein?” He hears Spirit ask, voice once again <em>soft,</em> that gentle tone that aggravated and flustered him in <em>equal measure.</em> “We can dance and spin here forever. You’ll keep tripping, and I’ll keep <em>pulling you back up.”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>The hand curled around his hip tugs him ever closer, and Stein finds himself <em>chest to chest</em> with his partner, his nose pressed into his shoulder. There’s that smell again; <em>cinnamon,</em> and something else, too, though Stein still can’t quite place it. Something <em>floral,</em> he thinks, perhaps <em>roses.</em> Yes, that seems like a scent Spirit would wear, romantic and classic almost to the point of being <em>trite.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>His eyes close for a moment as he breathes it in, and he muses whether he actually got close enough to know his scent like this. He <em>must have,</em> for it to be so clear in his mind. Perhaps during that aforementioned disastrous dance lesson, or in the moments before a fight, when he would draw close and slip his hand into Stein’s. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Moments pass before Stein realizes they have <em>stopped moving.</em> They still stand as if dancing, hands held up or holding the other’s body, but they have stilled as if frozen in place. The outstretched hand holding his own lets go after a second more, trailing up along his forearm and shoulder, until it comes to rest against his face, burning the shape of Spirit’s palm into his cheek. He’s not quite sure <em>why</em> every brush of his weapon’s skin seems to sear him, but Spirit has ever been like the <em>sun.</em> Just as bright. Just as hot. <em>Just as blinding.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wouldn’t it be nice if your dreams could stay like this?” Spirit whispers next to his ear, and Stein finally opens his eyes as the blistering hand that cradles his cheek tilts his face upwards. His weapon, his partner, his<em> Senpai</em> smiles down at him, eyes soft with no trace of the tears that had blurred them earlier. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This expression, he knows, he does not remember at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When I was going to leave. This is what you wanted, wasn’t it, Kohai?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Spirit presses closer, his head ducking lower, his thumb coming to tug gently at Stein’s lip. His breath hitches, and once again his senses are filled with rose and cinnamon, with eyes blue like the desert sky, with burning, soothing heat. He does not remember anything at all now, for there is only this moment that does not exist. Warm lips ghost against his own, softer than he deserves, and an answer escapes him as his eyes begin to flutter closed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Liar.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The hand that had so gently cupped his face now curls inward like a <em>claw,</em> fingernails digging into the tender flesh of his face, pulling and pulling until the skin <em>tears</em> and warm blood begins to drip down from half moon lacerations. Stein’s eyes snap open and are now met with <em>dull blue,</em> any expression at all dropped from Spirit’s features. He just <em>stares,</em> through him, truly unreadable, his face as still as a corpse in its grave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He tries to find his voice again, tries to force it out, but <em>nothing comes,</em> his throat filled so full with silence that he feels he might suffocate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re a fucking <em>liar,</em> Kohai,” Spirit growls out, teeth bared and <em>sharp.</em> “We <em>both</em> know that wasn’t what you wanted when I left.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The claws in his cheek sink <em>deeper,</em> cutting past the fat and the meat, down to <em>rounded bone,</em> and he can <em>hear</em> as the metal of the weapon's fingers scrapes against it, feel it <em>echo</em> in his skull and rattle his teeth. Nerves turn to molten metal in his face, and despite his pain tolerance, Stein can only <em>scream.</em> His hands, still gripping at Spirit’s shirt, twist into fists as he shoves his partner away as hard as he can.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The talons that had still been sunk down into his face slash down as the body they are connected to goes flying, and Stein knows his cheek is in <em>pieces,</em> blood gushing from his face and down his neck as the skin flaps uselessly. Spirit crashes into the coffee table with a manic <em>laugh,</em> broken, jagged wood piercing through the back of his abdomen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, <em>look at that!”</em> He laughs, laughs, <em>laughs,</em> his entire body shaking, blood seeping from his wound and dripping down from his fingers. “Looks like this night <em>is</em> gonna go how you remember!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stein’s breath is ragged now, panting from the pain in his face, from the effort of tossing a boy twice his size across the room, and from the<em> ache</em> that now pierces his chest. His hands once again curl into fists, and when he feels the cool metal of a scalpel in one, he is not surprised.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Spirit still laughs, impaled as he is on the broken leg of their cheap coffee table. He throws his arms up in Stein’s direction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“C’mon, Kohai! Show me what you wanted to do to me when I tried to run! <em>Show me!</em> Showmeshowmeshowmeshowmeshowme <em><strong>SHOW ME YOU FUCKING FREAK SHOW ME!”</strong></em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stein does not remember crossing the room. He does not remember kneeling over Spirit, straddling his thighs. He does not remember pressing his scalpel into tender flesh, splitting open the muscle along his stomach like it was made of <em>nothing at all,</em> prying and <em>stretching</em> his skin, further and further until slim fingers can wriggle past tissue and into the <em>hot, humid warmth</em> of his Senpai’s abdominal cavity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Above him, Spirit still <em>giggles,</em> even as a hand closes around his small intestine and begins to <em>pull.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That wasn’t so hard, <em>was it?”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stein chokes, no answer coming from his <em>bile-filled throat.</em> The squirming organ nearly <em>slips</em> from his hand, slick with <em>blood</em> and <em>body fat,</em> but he wraps his hand <em>tighter,</em> pulling and twisting and <em>ripping</em> until pink, pulsating meat is extracted from the incision in Spirit’s stomach. Ropes of tender viscera pile around him as he keeps <em>pulling, pulling, pulling,</em> gathering the life of his partner into his lap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another <em>yank,</em> and Spirit coughs, red spilling from his mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“H-hey, careful there! I’m <em>fragile~”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>He laughs, his body convulsing, blood spurting from the cut in his stomach as his abdomen muscles contract. Stein doesn’t flinch as a spray warms his face and dyes his grey hair <em>red.</em> Dull nails dig into hot, still <em>twitching</em> organs. He tries to breathe, tries to pull any air at all into his lungs, but it is thick, metallic, as choking as the vomit still clogging his throat that will not pass his <em>grinning, grinning lips.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hunches forward as one hand moves and takes his scalpel again, shoulders trembling, and a whimper finally escapes him as he cuts a line from Spirit’s abdomen up to his sternum.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Th-this <em>isn’t</em>...what I want,” he whispers, barely audible, words slipped past the madness that has clamped its hands on his voice box. Below him, as blade splits skin and sinew and muscle and flesh, Spirit sighs, like a teacher tired of scolding their student.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not good to lie, Stein.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The scalpel <em>slips</em> in his fingers, so slicked with gore, but he does not flinch even as it lacerates his thumb. He simply drops the tool to the side, onto the blood soaked rug that he and Spirit had picked out together. He moves his hand back up to begin pulling and tearing the skin around the cut he had left, but Spirit <em>catches</em> it in his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We both know this is <em>exactly</em> what you’ve always wanted to do to me,” Spirit hums, as he pulls Stein’s hand closer and <em>presses</em> the younger boy’s palm to his paling cheek. “You’re so <em>possessive</em> of your experiments Kohai.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stein trembles, still, as he feels the cooling cheek of his partner against his palm, as his free hand scrabbles at the seeping wound he left in the weapon’s chest, as his nails <em>catch</em> on broken skin and begin to peel back layers of epidermis, of tissue, of fat and <em>meat,</em> scratching and clawing to get at the tender organs still protected by his ribcage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hand digs for the knowledge of what is inside of his <em>still living dissection,</em> even as his eyes cannot look away from the serene face of his Senpai.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Spirit’s larger hand, still warm, covers Stein’s, both now cupping his face. His head turns, slightly, and lips <em>press</em> against the cut on the meister’s thumb, tasting <em>blood</em> as it mixes with his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You were so <em>angry</em> when I left. How <em>dare</em> I run. How <em>dare</em> Kami take your experiment from you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A <em>hot tongue</em> slips out to trace the small cut. Salt and metal and his own life leaking out onto the floor of the apartment they shared.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You wanted to make me <em>pay,</em> didn’t you, Kohai? Wanted to steal my heart back. <em>Literally.”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>He snorts and laughs, but Stein hears no mirth in it. Fingers<em> twitch,</em> free hand digging into the meat between Spirit’s ribs, and only when the gashes in his cheek begin to sting does Stein realize that he is<em> crying.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I-I <em>don’t…”</em> He sobs out, his chest heaving as he fights the instinct to keep <em>burrowing,</em> keep gouging and rending and tearing until the whole of Spirit’s inside is spread across the apartment. “I don’t <em>want this!”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Spirit’s grinning face <em>drops,</em> once again staring at the younger boy with blank eyes. His head tilts, leaning into the hand that still curls into his cheek in a near painful grip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure are persistent.<em> Oh!</em> I know what it is!” Spirit snaps his fingers on his other hand with a laugh. “I’m not playing the part right! My bad, my bad.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He clears his throat, as if preparing for a monologue in his theater class, and then his face <em>twists,</em> eyes blown wide in fear, lips curling back in a <em>scream</em> that ruins his throat and pierces Stein’s eardrums. The chest below him begins to rise and fall with the panicked breath of a <em>dying boy.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“P-please <em>stop,</em> Stein, I’m sorry!” Spirit begins to sob, fat tears mixing with the blood coughed up from his ragged thoat. “I-I’m so <em>sorry!</em> I won’t leave, I promise! It hurts so much, <em>please!”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Spirit keeps begging, sobbing, <em>screaming,</em> scraping at Stein’s head with every cry of pain. His voice fills him <em>completely,</em> tunneling into his head and his body, needles in so <em>deep</em> that the sound of wailing rips nerve from nerve and there is nothing but <em>blood</em> and <em>gore</em> and the <em>hole in his chest</em> where someone used to be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hands once so steady and sure now <em>tremble</em> uncontrollably as Spirit continues to plead for his life, his life that is <em>already over,</em> his life that has stained Stein’s clothes red and soaked down into the floor and splattered across the walls. The meister feels his stomach lurch, bile corroding away sensitive flesh as it rises in his throat, and the hand that had still rested on Spirit’s cheek moves to take Stein’s weight as he turns to the side and <em>vomits.</em> He’s surprised he has enough in him to throw up, but it comes, his shoulders shaking as he <em>heaves. </em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stein spits the last of the sick from his mouth, then takes in a <em>gulping breath,</em> still quaking, barely able to keep himself from falling into the mess. Spirit’s screams and sobs have quieted to <em>whimpers</em> that crawl across the younger boy’s skin like stinging insects. He stares down, at the contents of his stomach slowly turning red as it mixes with blood, at the ropes of intestine still coiled by his thighs, at his own hand sticky with fluid.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“P-please,” Spirit ekes out, voice cracked and <em>broken</em> from the pain of having his chest cavity open to the world. “I-It hurts so much, Kohai, it <em>hurts…!”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stein heaves again, but he knows his stomach is <em>empty,</em> empty save for the thousand pound stone that sits in it now, growing <em>heavier</em> with each cry that falls from his partner’s lips. One hand still rests on top of his hot, bleeding ribcage, and his nails begin to <em>dig</em> into the meat, eliciting a gasp of pain from Spirit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shut...shut <em>up…”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stein finally manages to speak again, forcing words through <em>raw</em> and <em>acid burned</em> vocal cords. His fingers scrape against <em>bone</em> as his hand continues to claw against the muscle of Spirit’s ribs. The older boy chokes on the blood in his mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wh-what? Kohai--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I said<em> be quiet!”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stein turns back now, sitting up on his knees above him, tears once again stinging the gashes in his cheek even as his face twists in <em>rage.</em> His hand raises and curls into a fist, tight and bloody, and with a wrenching sob, he brings it down on the wall of Spirit’s ribcage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This isn’t what I <em>fucking wanted!</em> I never wanted to butcher you like this! I just wanted to <em>know!</em> I wanted to know what you looked like on the inside, why you were so <em>different</em> from me!” His other hand, hanging at his side, reaches out to grab at Spirit’s still distorted face with desperation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They were just <em>experiments,</em> why don’t you <em>get that?!</em> They never -- I made sure they<em> didn’t hurt!</em> They were never meant to <em>hurt!”</em> His nails dig deeper into Spirit’s cheek, a mirror of his own torn face. “I don’t understand! <em>Why did you leave?!”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stein’s voice, usually so smooth and even, <em>cracks,</em> like permafrost breaking apart and <em>crashing</em> into the ocean, leaving the spray to fall down his cheeks and clean away the blood smeared across his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why did it <em>hurt</em> so much when you left?!” He cries out again, intense and <em>broken.</em> “I searched for so long to find the answer, but I <em>still can’t!”</em> Another raise of his fist, and electricity crackles around him as he <em>slams</em> down again with all the strength he has gained from fighting with Spirit by his side. Bone<em> cracks</em> and splinters, lacerating his hand, but he<em> does not stop.</em> “Why does it still hurt?! I can’t stand not knowing! If you had just <em>stayed--”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Spirit’s ribcage collapses under Stein’s fist, and they are both coated in a fresh spray of <em>blood.</em> The boiling heat of it shocks the meister out of his crooked line of thought, and he is left gasping on top of his partner, panting from effort and the sobs that still threaten to spill out of him. The body underneath him is <em>motionless,</em> though somehow its heart still beats, pumping <em>uselessly</em> as its life flows across hardwood floors.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Silence stretches on between them, Stein staring down at the living corpse of his partner, as blood oozes from the both of them, <em>sluggish</em> and <em>hot.</em> Spirit’s face is once again <em>blank,</em> unreadable, unmoving, and the only thing that suggests he still lives is his dull blue eyes locked with his meister’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know I can’t answer those questions, Kohai,” Spirit’s cadaver finally murmurs, quiet enough to not disturb the air that has stilled around them. Stein breathes in <em>sharply,</em> shuddering, but he swallows, slowly falling forward and pressing his sweat and blood slicked forehead against his ex-partner’s, red hair turning deeper scarlet as blood soaks the strands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span><em>“I know,”</em> Stein whispers against cold lips, his voice unheard. “You’re not really Senpai.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I’m not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Spirit’s limp, cold arms raise as if lifted by the strings of a puppeteer and wrap around his meister’s trembling shoulders, even as Stein’s hand closes around his pointless, pulsating heart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re alone in this room. You always are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A whimper, quiet and pathetic, escapes him, and as his hand yanks back, ripping veins and valves and arteries and <em>meat meat meat,</em> Stein wonders if this nightmare will stain his hands red.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. stein, alone ( again )</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Smoke curls up past Stein’s lips, thick and acrid with the smell of nicotine, and he watches as it dissipates in the freezing winter air. His arms fold in front of him, on top of the balcony railing that separates him and the foreign city below. Idly, he watches black streets writhe with light and life, eternally moving, never resting, even now as the night stretches on endlessly, dawn ever out of reach.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stein envies its perpetuity.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His hand moves, thumb rubbing against the crook of his forefinger, and he feels the gritty texture of dried blood, flaking away into his palm at the friction. He<em> feels</em> it, under his fingernails, between the cracks and folds in his skin, soaked in so deep it could never be washed away. And <em>yet,</em> when he lifts his hand up and holds it out against that sleepless city, there is no trace of the <strong>red</strong> that had stained him in his nightmare.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stares at his outstretched hand a moment longer, eyes tracing the rise and fall of calluses and scars, before dropping it back down against the balcony railing with another sigh of smoke. Reality is as tenuous as ever, he supposes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How many times has that nightmare replayed, now? He can never be sure; it feels as if it has always plagued him, since that moment was committed to his memory, since he tried to control his uncontrollable dreams. It spins out in different directions, sometimes, branches grown from new thoughts, and it is not every time he sleeps that it rears its head. He has many fears, after all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But <em>he</em> is always there, his blood soaked Senpai, crouching at the edge of his consciousness and waiting as a <em>predator</em> waits for <em>prey.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Insomnia has long troubled him, leaving him awake even after days of exhausted sleeplessness, but his <em>nightmares</em> have kept him awake for just as long.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His hand raises again and scrubs at his face, feeling the sharp prickle of stubble against his palm. Shaving was yet another thing he found little time for, in between his experiments and his work. He wonders for a moment if he could pull off a beard, then immediately dismisses the idea. It would almost certainly get in the way far too much.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He takes his stub of a cigarette between two fingers, and breathes in one last lungful of nicotine before pulling it away from his lips and putting out the burning cherry on the metal balcony railing. He waits until his lungs begin to burn and ache, then finally breathes out again, vapors rising above his head. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His hand twitches. <em>Still itching.</em> But his eyelids still feel heavy, and he must remedy that before he falls into yet another dream. So he pushes off the balcony, giving the infinite, eternal city one last look before turning and heading back inside, towards the kitchen and his extra-strength coffee.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. unripe apples</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>quick fyi, this chapter actually involves my friend's oc, karlson! honestly i wrote this mostly for us, but i hope y'all enjoy her, too.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It doesn’t take him long to start the coffee running; the movements are long practiced, barely needing his attention. Find the coffee his coworker thinks he hides well in the oatmeal container. Measure out four cups-- perhaps five tonight. Fill with water. Find a mug that isn’t dirty, because no one here seems to be fond of doing the dishes. Wait. Wait. <em>Wait.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How he <em>despises</em> waiting.</span>
</p>
<p><span>He leans his elbow on the counter of the center island, as his other hand flexes around the mug he holds, the bones in his fingers beginning to sting from the pressure. For a moment he wonders just how much pressure it would take to<em> shatter</em> it in his hand. He knows his grip strength is above average, it must be with his frequent battles. Roughly 215 PSI to break porcelain. He grips <em>harder,</em> knuckles turning white, curiosity <em>spinning</em> in his head.</span><span><br/></span><span><br/></span><span>His experiment in whether or not he can shatter Spirit’s favorite mug is interrupted by a</span><em> flash</em> at the edge of his vision.</p>
<p>
  <span>He breathes in sharply as his eyes focus on the light, shining at him through the walls. Small and round, red-green and bobbing in the air like an unripe apple hanging from a tree. A <em>soul,</em> one that he has grown familiar with in these last few weeks -- months -- <em>years?</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Time escapes him again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sets down the mug he still holds in an iron grip before it can break and he has to make an <em>awkward excuse.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thought it was you,” the soul says as it rounds the corner, surrounded in the flesh of the one it belongs to. Stein tilts his head to the side a tick.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I doubt I’m the only one who ventures to the kitchen in the early morning hours.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, but you’re the only one who does it like eight days in a row. Y’know it’s <em>5 AM,</em> right?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Have you ever seen me with a watch, Karlson.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The soul, now once again named Karlson, snorts with a mumbled <em>‘good point’</em> as she walks over to start digging in one of the kitchen cabinets behind him, most likely searching for the Lucky Charms that have been depleting at a <em>suspiciously</em> swift pace. He’s glad he didn’t pilfer some tonight, or he would’ve been caught <em>redhanded.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He glances towards the coffee pot, now a fourth of the way full, and frowns slightly. <em>Death,</em> that thing is slow. His eyes slide back to Karlson, now his only distraction as he continues to wait. He watches her arm extend up as she takes the box of sugar cereal, her diminutive stature given a few more inches of height as she pushes onto her tip toes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wonders if her joints<em> creak</em>. If they ache and sting and long to be opened to the air.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He swallows the knot in his throat and looks back down, trying to forget the feeling of <em>cold metal</em> between his fingers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why is it <em>you’re</em> awake, then?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Behind him, Karlson falls back onto her heels with the cereal in hand, and goes to grab a bowl from the next cabinet over. More reaching. More stretching. More extension of muscles, <em>rectus abdominus, internal oblique, deltoid</em> and <em>triceps brachii,</em> each red and pulsing with <em>blood</em> underneath pale skin. The flutter of lungs as her hand nearly slips on the counter to send her down, the beat of the heart as she regains her balance and nabs the bowl with a huff.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stein’s hand <em>twitches,</em> and he curls it into a tight fist, dull nails digging into his palm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I always get up this early. Get things together for whatever we gotta do today, set up contingencies in case one of y’all get up to your usual goofy bullshit.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What incredible faith you have in us,” Stein sniffs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fuck off, Franken, you stole a goddamn endangered bird in the last city.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He feels the bap of a spoon against his ribcage, and a somewhat not at all guilty smile edges onto his face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t help my curious nature.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes you can, you just don’t<em> try.”</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She says it without venom, without malice, the ribbing between them has always been set like this, but some part of it still <em>digs</em> into his chest with an abruptness and a sting he does not expect. He stares down at the vinyl countertop underneath his still closed fist, at the way <em>red</em> begins to seep out from between his fingers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He doesn’t even try.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The silence lingers, filling the space between them, and it is <em>too late</em> by the time he realizes this mistake. Karlson has paused in her quest for breakfast, and is now turned to him with the fridge door still hanging open behind her, brows furrowed in confusion at his lack of a witty retort.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You good?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m fine,” he says, too quickly, and he curses himself for it. Karlson frowns, still watching him as she grabs the milk carton and closes the fridge door. His back still faces her, but he<em> knows</em> the look she holds in her eye, can feel it <em>burrowing</em> into him. <em>Worry. Pity. Mistrust.</em> Each of them wrap around his throat and grow tighter, tighter,<em> tighter.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“When’s the last time you slept?” She asks, gently, and the ropes twist<em> taut,</em> stealing the breath from his body.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Earlier tonight, actually,” he manages to choke past the noose. “A few hours, I believe. On top of my keyboard.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah?” The binds loosen, just enough for Stein to breathe in the fading scent of <em>blood,</em> and he hunches forward imperceptibly as his weight is taken by his numbing fist. “That’s good. Was worried we’d need to tie you down to the bed for you to get some sleep, and I was <em>not</em> looking forward to the jokes Spirit would make.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mm. Neither would I.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Behind him, Karlson resumes the assembly of her breakfast, and the coils around Stein’s neck finally go slack, resting heavy on his collarbones like <em>cast iron chains.</em> He raises his hand and grasps the end of his screw as he breathes out slowly, tries to breathe out the<em> tension</em> in his bones, forget the eyes that <em>open across the counter,</em> and focus only on the<em> clicking</em> of the screw turning in his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His hand unclenches, <em>slowly,</em> and he stares down at the half moon cuts left in his palm, <em>red</em> and <em>irritated</em>. He takes it in his other hand and <em>presses down</em> with his thumb, watching beads of <em>red blood</em> forced from his skin. Such a <em>tiny</em> amount, how much more could he bring to the surface? Press <em>harder.</em> <em>Widen the cuts.</em> Pick at the sensitive muscle underneath, pull sinew like the <em>strings of a puppet</em> and watch his fingers <em>dance.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Karlson’s bowl of cereal <em>clinks</em> onto the countertop, and with a start, Stein realizes he holds his hand in a near<em> bone crushing grip,</em> knuckles white and shaking from effort. He breathes out again, hoping Karlson won’t notice the<em> tension</em> in his shoulders, and lets go of his hand. Blood runs down from the cuts, and he swallows, quickly closing it and hiding away evidence of his own<em> lack of control.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He glances back towards the coffee pot. Still just half full.<em> Did it always take so long?</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So,” starts Karlson, Stein looking back to her. “How did you sleep? Can’t imagine being passed out your keyboard is comfortable.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mm. It isn’t.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s fairly sure he’s come away with square imprints on his forehead before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I slept well enough, though.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So, that’s enough sleep for the next week?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Karlson is <em>staring</em> into him, paying no attention to her cereal, and Stein feels the noose <em>tightening</em> around his neck once again. Breath is squeezed from his throat, leaving his lungs airless, <em>burning.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve never needed much of it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Karlson snorts, less a laugh and more an incredulous statement of <em>yeah, she should’ve known he’d say that,</em> and finally starts eating her now soggy cereal. Stein watches for a moment, watches the bend of her elbow, watches the extension of her jaw, until an eye <em>peers</em> at him from inside her<em> open mouth,</em> and he has to look away again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hand twitches, curling, <em>achingly</em> empty of tools used for pulling knowledge from <em>unwilling bodies.</em> He tries to breathe again, past the constriction of anxiety, and all he smells is blood pooling from nowhere, metallic and dreamlike, filling his senses as if he <em>drowns</em> in it. Red in his eyes and his nose and his mouth, a nothing that drowns him in its impossibility.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wonders how deeply Karlson sleeps.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stein grips the edge of his screw, turning it back again, again, <em>again,</em> trying to push flashes of bloody, freckled skin from his thoughts. How many times has he wound his mind around it, tried to force the world back into focus with <em>spinning desperation?</em> He feels the<em> tightness</em> in his head, the straining like wires spiraled too tight and beginning to fatigue. He wonders how much longer they can twist around and around before they <em>snap.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hears the ringing sound of a spoon<em> tapping</em> against ceramic, and he drags his eyes back up to look approximately in Karlson’s direction. He can’t bear to look at her face, <em>not now,</em> so he focuses instead on the joints of her calloused and scarred fingers, ignoring the tiny, needling voices that ask what that hand might look like with the <em>skin</em> pulled back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You <em>sure</em> you got enough sleep?” Karlson asks, each word tearing at him like thorns. “You keep turning that screw in your head. Which still gives me the fuckin’ willies, I’ll have you know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Willies aside,” he mumbles, still half suffocated by her pity, “I slept fine. Enough to keep working.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“After you drink a probably<em> lethal</em> amount of caffeine.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes, exactly.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Karlson drops her spoon into the bowl with a huff, milk splashing over the sides and onto the counter. Sharp elbows plant on the counter as she leans forwards, closer towards Stein, and he resists the urge to lean away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Will you be serious for once in your life? It’s not good for you to only get, like, two hours of sleep a <em>week.”</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve seemed to have survived it so far,” he says, somehow, voice still flat despite the trembling of his constricted voice box. “I’m<em> fine,</em> Irene. I don’t need your constant supervision.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because god forbid somebody actually fucking<em> worries</em> about you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Karlson pushes off her elbows, jaw tight with frustration, and Stein feels his skin sloughing away with the friction of sliding rope. <em>Worry about him?</em> Why would she <em>worry</em> about him? He opens his mouth to speak, but finds his mouth filled with<em> blood soaked cotton,</em> his windpipe <em>crushed</em> by the choking noose held so <em>tight</em> in Karlson’s clenched hands, winding ever tighter as she walks past him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why do you have to be so goddamn <em>difficult?”</em> Karlson asks from behind him, her voice trailing to the left as she goes to the sink and drops her bowl in haphazardly. “I just want to <em>help</em> you, we all do, but we can’t do <em>shit</em> if you don’t ask for help.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Ask for help?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The corners of his mouth twitch up, lips <em>pulling back,</em> and he raises a hand to hide the wild <em>grin</em> that spreads across his face. When has <em>asking for help</em> done him any good? When has telling <em>anyone</em> about his constant <em>thirst</em> for knowledge, the <em>unrelenting need</em> to take apart every living thing and see what makes them <em>tick,</em> the constant eyes and mouths and voices and <em>blood</em> that creep around the edge of his psyche, when has it ever brought him anything but <em>horrified rejection?</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Help has never come from those around him, and it will not come now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He has survived this long on his own, after all, even with insomnia dragging his waking hours into days and weeks, even with nightmares that <em>mock</em> him with visions of things he pretends he does not want. Karlson’s offered hand holds only saccharine pity and <em>barely veiled disgust,</em> and he will not be fooled.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Not again.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His hand drops, the grin falling with it as he settles uncomfortably back into <em>resignation,</em> and he lets the pain of thorns prodding his throat remind him of the consequences of <em>letting them know.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m perfectly capable of handling my own problems. <em>I don’t need your help.”</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of fucking <em>course</em> you don’t, Stein,” Karlsons says, exasperated, as she turns on the sink and begins to wash her half eaten cereal down the drain. <em>“God,</em> you’re stubborn. Sometimes I wonder whether you should even <em>be here.”</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The brambles tangled around Stein’s neck dig <em>deeper.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I mean, I know we need a medic, and you do good work. But is it really worth having to deal with your misanthropic ass?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nettles pierce tender skin as his throat rises and falls, trying to swallow the <em>barbed knot</em> fixed there, <em>sharpened</em> by her every word. There is no mistaking them for a fumbled, too-sharp quip, a <em>harsh slip up</em> in their usual back and forth banter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No, her voice is as keen and painful as a well aimed arrow, and the<em> pang</em> of it piercing his torso distracts him away from the voice nagging at the back of his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>This isn’t like her.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Didn’t you say something about <em>worrying</em> for me?” He half mumbles, a lackluster retort to cling to the fantasy that this is anything like normal. “How quickly your mood changes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Behind him, Karlson snorts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I worry about you the way a<em> rat</em> worries about a<em> snake.”</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>An icy, freezing <em>numbness</em> starts to spread out from his chest, the sound of running water turning to <em>static</em> in his ears. His hands tingle and shiver as he flexes them, and he glances down to the<em> still oozing</em> half moon cuts on his palm as they begin to sting, <em>cold sweat</em> seeping into the wounds. The briars around his neck winder tighter, tighter,<em> tighter,</em> and he finds himself gasping for breath, his head filling with <em>shifting sand</em> as the world nearly falls out from under him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His visions<em> fuzzes</em> at the edges, and past the fraying blackness, he barely sees Karlson standing there beside him, her face slack and pale. <em>When had she moved?</em> The sink still runs behind them, <em>forgotten,</em> a roaring waterfall to wash away his thoughts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re <em>dangerous,</em> you know,” Karlson says, her voice level and devoid of her earlier frustration. “Of course, we all are, that’s the point of this team. But the thing about <em>you,</em> Franken, is that you are <em>unpredictable.”</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stein tries to swallow again, tries to take in any air at all, but it’s pushed from his lungs just as quickly, chilled by the<em> ice</em> sitting in his chest. He finally glances to the side, locking with eyes as green and dark as <em>rotting seaweed.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Your point?” He manages to eke out past trembling, frozen lips.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My<em> point,”</em> Karlson snorts, “Is that I don’t think you’re worth the risk.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a <em>flash</em> at the bottom of his periphery, and he hears a strange sound, a sliding and shifting <em>vibration</em> in his chest that is almost familiar but <em>hard to place,</em> like shapes in smoke that slip through his fingers. Warmth starts to melt away the frost latticed across his skin. Stein looks down, and finally recognizes the sound of <em>metal scraping bone,</em> as Karlson’s pale fingers press the kitchen knife <em>deeper</em> between his ribs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So, y’know, I thought the<em> rat</em> better bite first, before the snake decides it’s<em> hungry.”</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She leans forwards, one hand planted on the counter next to them, and begins to<em> twist</em> the blade inside Stein’s chest cavity, boring a hole in his side. Warmth turns to <em>searing heat</em> as his body finally registers the pain of his left lung being <em>punctured.</em> He hunches forward, gasping for breath as blood begins to fill his throat, all while Karlson <em>stares,</em> near expressionless, <em>utterly unblinking.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stein coughs, red <em>splattering</em> across the countertop. He tries to grab at Karlson’s thin wrist, wrench the knife from her grip, but his shaking hands<em> slip</em> in the blood pouring out from his body. Her own hand remains steady, like a butcher carving<em> meat.</em> Useless muscle splits apart on the blade’s sharp edge as she<em> drags</em> it along the curvature of his torso. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“S--stop,” he gasps, struggling to form the words. “Irene,<em> stop…!”</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why don’t you <em>make me?”</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She jerks the knife to the side, and Stein <em>jolts,</em> a pained whimper gurgling past his blood filled throat as the blade slices through<em> tender organs.</em> A horrid <em>crunch</em> rattles his chest as it grinds against his sternum. Each beat of his racing heart presses the tip <em>deeper</em> into the delicate muscle.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Aren’t you supposed to be<em> strong?”</em> Karlson stares through him, eyes burning, even as her face stays blank. “It should be easy for you to push me off and <em>kill me.</em> I know you’ve done it before.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A sharp intake of breath, a flicker of shock and fear in his expression, and finally a grin like <em>shattering ice</em> cracks across her face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Did you think we <em>didn’t know?”</em> Now, her voice is tight with barely constrained laughter, <em>cruel</em> and <em>mocking.</em> “You’re not as unreadable as you <em>think,</em> Franken.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Karlson presses her other hand to his chest, and <em>shoves</em> with a strength she shouldn’t have, sending him <em>crashing</em> into the far cabinets and onto the cold kitchen floor. Wood splinters dig into his back and blood begins to pool around him as he coughs, each spasm forcing more fluid out of the long<em> gash</em> in his ribs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s like you barely even <em>try</em> to hide it,” Karlson chuckles, taking leisurely steps towards him as he bleeds out, hands shoved in her pockets. “You get this <em>look</em> in your eyes, like a starving animal watching helpless little lab rats run around their maze. Fuckin’ <em>creepy.”</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cooling blood splashes up onto her shoes with each step closer. Stein coughs again, trying to clear his fluid filled throat, and raises one trembling hand to grasp the knife still buried in his chest. He can’t remove it, he knows--he’d only start <em>hemorrhaging faster.</em> A passing half thought wonders why he hasn’t<em> already</em> fallen unconscious, with most of his life spilled across the kitchen tile, but it’s blown away by Karlson swiftly kicking his hand away from the knife handle.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” she mumbles, grinding his wrist under her heel. “Not sure what I’d do if I saw you <em>wielding a knife.”</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wh-what…” Stein stutters out, as his chest<em> rattles</em> with the effort of breathing. “Y-you’ll...do something <em>worse</em> than shred my organs with, <em>gh</em>...w-with a <em>dirty kitchen knife?”</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Karlson stops, her smile falling, the only movement in her body the swaying of her bangs and the <em>twitching</em> of eyes opening in places they should not be. She drops down into a crouch, so suddenly that Stein <em>flinches,</em> and when he looks at her again, that horrid grin once more curls up her freckled cheeks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“See, that’s what I’ve always <em>liked</em> about you, Stein. Even with a huge fuck off knife shoved between your ribs, you manage to keep that <em>sharp wit.”</em> She reaches out and punctuates her last two words with a <em>tap-tap</em> on the knife, eliciting a pained gasp from Stein.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s why I had so much<em> faith</em> in you. I think I could have even called you <em>family!”</em> She continues, in a near <em>sing song tone.</em> “Even when the others said they didn’t trust you and think you’re dangerous. Even when they called you a <em>freak</em> and a <em>lunatic."</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Thin fingers wrap around the handle of the knife, pulling it down so it once again<em> scrapes</em> against bone and cartilage. She pays no mind to the way Stein trembles from the pain, nor to the blood and saliva that flecks her skin when he coughs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I even still trusted you when Spirit told us about what you did to him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stein goes <em>tense,</em> and when his horrified eyes meet hers, they are crinkled with<em> joy.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“H-he…?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of <em>course</em> he told us!” She laughs, jostling the knife enough to silence any other interruptions. “He spilled all the <em>gory details,</em> too. How you <em>drugged</em> him and pulled him apart in his sleep, <em>experimented</em> on him like your own personal test subject. Gave him all those <em>ugly scars.</em> Traumatized the poor guy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She juts her lip out in an exaggerated<em> pout</em> now, her elbow coming up and resting on her knee as she leans her cheek on her hand, watching Stein struggle to keep breathing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He’s still<em> terrified</em> of you, y’know. Flinches every time you come near. But you probably <em>knew that,</em> huh? Always so<em> observant.”</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stein swallows back another cough, turning his head to look anywhere but at her. <em>Of course he knew.</em> It was impossible not to notice--how Spirit<em> recoiled</em> when he’d reach out to him, how his eyes would flick back and forth like a <em>frightened deer</em> if he got too close. How he <em>still</em> refused to let Stein know where he slept.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How that trust between them would always be <em>broken.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Look at me, Stein.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A hand grips at his blood covered chin, dull nails digging into his jaw, and forces him to look back at Karlson. Her face is<em> slack</em> and <em>empty,</em> but he blinks, and that dark grin flickers back onto her lips, like a frame skipping in a film.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“S’not nice to look away while I’m talking. Especially when I’m talking about<em> you.”</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She keeps his face in a tight grip for a second more, their eyes locked, before letting go and patting his cheek with a now bloody hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span><em>“Good.</em> About time you learn to face the problems you’ve made.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She leans back on her haunches and settles her forearm on her knee, her other hand still wrapped around the handle of the knife.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Even after Spirit shared that <em>horrible</em> trauma with us, I still had faith in you.” She sighs, heavy and dramatic. “I thought we were <em>friends,</em> y’know. I was sure you’d turn around and learn how to be a good teammate. A <em>good person.</em> You’re so <em>smart,</em> after all, and it’s not hard to figure out. I <em>believed</em> in you, Franken.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The feigned pity and mirth falls from her face, twisting into something closer to<em> disgust.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What a fucking <strong>disappointment</strong> you turned out to be.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She yanks back suddenly, wresting the knife from Stein’s chest with a spray of blood that strikes across her shirt. Stein <em>gasps,</em> then gurgles, as his throat once more fills with blood, and he is left coughing and shuddering in pain, one hand uselessly pawing at the massive wound. Karlson simply <em>stares,</em> holding the dripping knife, watching as he drowns in his own gore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No matter how long I waited, how I<em> worried</em> about you and tried to be your shoulder to lean on, you just <em>wouldn’t fucking change.”</em> She turns the knife in her grip, pointing it back in Stein’s direction. “I’m tired of gambling with your sadism.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She leans forward, her knees hitting the blood soaked ground, and raises the knife up past her head. Stein watches her, feels the numbing <em>cold</em> of his limbs, the aching emptiness of his collapsed lungs, and knows he is<strong> helpless.</strong></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“S-stop...” He chokes, blood spilling out past his lips, though he knows his words are lost to her. "Irene...!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Karlson glowers down at him, the knife hanging in the air like a<em> guillotine</em> ready to drop. Blood drips down onto his face from the sharpened tip. He blinks once, tries to reach out to the soul of his friend, but his fingers sink into soft, decaying flesh.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This could’ve gone so much easier, Franken,” that rotten apple whispers. “If only you weren’t so <strong>selfish</strong>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The guillotine falls, and then falls again, and <em>again,</em> for a kitchen knife isn't strong enough to decapitate in just one cut. Stein makes no more pleas, the only sound from his bludgeoned throat a desperate gurgling that fades into nothing at all, as Karlson keeps chopping and hacking and cutting and splitting. He still<em> feels</em> it, each blow of the rapidly dulling knife sending shockwaves of pain through his body, even as she begins to saw at his spinal cord, even as his life leaks out into the tiles. He is dead, but his punishment is not done, so he will stay in this cold, putrid body until Karlson pulls him apart <em>piece by piece,</em> until he is nothing but bones and dust, and maybe then that'll be enough. <em>Maybe,</em> he thinks, <em>but not definitely.</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He's just been so selfish.</span>
  </em>
</p>
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